To\vards the Goal 

A Woman's Letter from the Front 



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:opy 1 Mrs. Humphry Ward 



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Towards the Goal 

A Woman's Letter from the Front 



Towards the Goal 

A Woman's Letter from the Front 



By 
Mrs. Humphry Ward 



New York 

Charles Scribner's Sons 

1917 






Copyright, 1917, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 




f -7 1917 



'CI.A462299 



Towards the Goal 

A Woman's Letter from the Front 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 

A WOMAN'S LETTER FROM THE 
FRONT 

March 26, 1917. 

Dear Mr. Roosevelt, 

It may be now frankly confessed — (you, 
some time ago, gave me leave to publish your 
original letter, as it might seem opportune) — 
that it was you who gave the impulse last year, 
which led to the writing of the first series 
of Letters on England's Efforts in the war, 
which were published in book form in June, 
1916. Your appeal found me in our quiet 
country house, busy with quite other work, 
and at first I thought it impossible that I could 
attempt so new a task as you proposed to me. 
But support and encouragement came from 
our own authorities, and like many other 
thousands of English women under orders, I 
could only go and do my best. I spent some 
time in the Munition areas, watching the enor- 
mous and rapid development of our war in- 



4 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

dustries and of the astonishing part played 
in it by women; I was allowed to visit a por- 
tion of the Fleet, and finally, to spend twelve 
days in France, ten of them among the great 
supply bases and hospital camps, with two 
days at the British Headquarters, and on the 
front, near Poperinghe, and Richebourg St. 
Vaast. 

The result was a short book which has been 
translated into many foreign tongues — French, 
Italian, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, 
and Japanese, — which has brought me many 
American letters from many different States, 
and has been, perhaps, most widely read of all 
among our own people. For we all read news- 
papers, and we all forget them ! In this vast 
and changing struggle, events huddle on each 
other, so that the new blurs and wipes out the 
old. There is always room — ^is there not.^^ — 
for such a personal narrative as may recall to 
us the main outlines and the chief determining 
factors of a war, in which — often — everything 
seems to us in flux, and our eyes, amid the tu- 
mult of the stream, are apt to lose sight of the 
landmarks on its banks, and the signs of the 
approaching goal. 

And now again — after a year — I have been 
attempting a similar task, with renewed and 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 5 

cordial help from our authorities at home and 
abroad. And I venture to address these new 
Letters directly to yourself, as to that American 
of all others, to whom this second chapter of 
England's Effort may look for sympathy. 
Whither are we tending — your country and 
mine.f^ Congress meets on April the 2d. Be- 
fore this Letter appears great decisions will have 
been taken. I will not attempt to speculate. 
The logic of facts will sweep our nations to- 
gether in some sort of intimate union — of that 
I have no doubt. 

How much further, then, has Great Britain 
marched since the Spring of last year — how 
much nearer is she to the end.^ One can but 
answer such questions in the most fragmentary 
and tentative way, relying for the most part 
on the opinions and information of those who 
know, those who are in the van of action, at 
home and abroad, but also on one's own per- 
sonal impressions of an incomparable scene. 
And every day, almost, at this breathless mo- 
ment, the answer of yesterday may become 
obsolete. I left our Headquarters in France 
some days before the news of the Russian revo- 
lution reached London, and while the Somme 
retirement was still in its earlier stages. Im- 
mediately afterwards the events of one short 



6 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

week transformed the whole political aspect 
of Europe, and may well prove to have changed 
the face of the war — although as to that, let 
there be no dogmatising yet ! But before the 
pace becomes faster still, and before the un- 
folding of those great and perhaps final events 
we may now dimly foresee, let me try and 
seize the impressions of some memorable weeks 
and bring them to bear — so far as the war is 
concerned — on those questions which, in the 
present state of affairs, must interest you in 
America scarcely less than they interest us 
here. Where, in fact, do we stand? 

Any kind of answer must begin with the 
Navy — for in the case of Great Britain, and 
indeed scarcely less in the case of the Allies, 
that is the foundation of everything. To 
yourself the facts will all be familiar — but for 
the benefit of those innumerable friends of the 
Allies in Europe and America whom I would 
fain reach with the help of your great name, 
I will run through a few of the recent — the 
ground — facts of the past year, as I myself ran 
through them a few days ago, before, with an 
Admiralty permit, I went down to one of the 
most interesting naval bases on our coast and 
found myself amid a group of men engaged 
night and day in grappling with the submarine 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 7 

menace which treatens not only Great Britain, 
not only the Allies, but yourselve;s, and every 
neutral nation. It is well to go back to these 
facts. They are indeed worthy of this island 
nation, and her sea-born children. 

To begin with, the personnel of the British 
Navy, which at the beginning of the war was 
140,000, was la^t year 300,000. This year it 
is 400,000, or very nearly three times what it 
was before the war. Then as to ships — ''If we 
were strong in capital ships at the beginning of 
the war," said Mr. Balfour, last September, 
"we are yet stronger now — absolutely and 
relatively — and in regard to cruisers and de- 
stroyers there is absolutely no comparison 
between our strength in 1914 and our strength 
now. There is no part of our naval strength 
in which we have not got a greater supply, 
and in some departments an incomparably 
greater supply, than we had on August 4, 1914. 
. . . The tonnage of the Navy has increased 
by well over a million tons since war began." 

So Mr. Balfour, six months ago. Five months 
later, it fell to Sir Edward Carson to move the 
naval estimates, under pressure, as we all 
know, of the submarine anxiety. He spoke 
in the frankest and plainest language of that 
anxiety, as did the Prime Minister in his now 



8 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

famous speech of February 22d, and as did 
the speakers in the House of Lords, Lord Lyt- 
ton. Lord Curzon, and Lord Beresford, on the 
same date. The attack is not yet checked. The 
danger is not over. Still again — look at some 
of the facts ! 

In two years and a quarter of war: 

Eight million men moved across the seas — 
almost without mishap. 

Nine million and a half tons of explosives 
carried to our own armies and those of our 
allies. 

Over a million horses and mules; and 

Over forty-seven million gallons of petrol 
supplied to the armies. 

And besides, twenty-five thousand ships 
have been examined for contraband of war, 
on the high seas, or in harbour, since the war 
began. 

And at this, one^ must pause a moment to 
think — once again — what it means, to call up 
the familiar image of Britain's ships, large and 
small, scattered over the wide Atlantic and 
the approaches to the North Sea, watching 
there through winter and summer, storm and 
fair, and so carrying out, relentlessly, the 
blockade of Germany, through every circum- 
stance often of danger and difficulty: with 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 9 

every consideration for neutral interests that 
is compatible with this desperate war, in which 
the very existence of England is concerned; 
and without the sacrifice of a single life, unless 
it be the lives of British sailors, often lost in 
these boardings of passing ships, amid the 
darkness and storm of winter seas. 

There, indeed, in these wave-beaten ships, 
as in the watching fleets of the English Ad- 
mirals outside Toulon and Brest, while Na- 
poleon was marching triumphantly about Eu- 
rope, lies the root fact of the war. It is a 
commonplace, but one that has been ''proved 
upon our pulses." Who does not remember 
the shock that went through England — ^and 
the civilised world — when the first partial news 
of the Battle of Jutland reached London, and 
we were told our own losses, before we knew 
either the losses of the enemy or the general 
result of the battle ? It was neither fear, nor 
panic; but it was as though the nation, hold- 
ing its breath, realised for the first time where, 
for it, lay the vital elements of being. The 
depths in us were stirred. We knew in 
very deed that we were the children of the 
sea! 

And now again the depths are stirred. The 
development of the submarine attack has set 



10 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

us a new and stern task, and we are "straitened 
till it be accomplished." The great battle- 
ships seem almost to have left the stage. In 
less than three months, said Sir Edward Car- 
son, speaking on the 21st of February, 626,000 
tons of British, neutral, and allied shipping 
had been destroyed. Since the beginning of 
the war we — Great Britain — have lost over 
two million tons of shipping, and our allies 
and the neutrals have lost almost as much. 
There is a certain shortage of food in Great 
Britain, and a shortage of many other things 
besides. Writing about the middle of Feb- 
ruary, an important German newspaper raised 
a shout of jubilation. "The whole sea was as 
if swept clean at one blow" — by the announce- 
ment of the intensified "blockade" of the first 
of February. So the German scribe. But 
again the facts shoot up — ^hard and irreducible, 
through the sea of comment. While the Ger- 
man newspapers were shouting to each other, 
the sea was so far from being "swept clean," 
that 12,000 ships had actually passed in and 
out of British ports in the first eighteen days 
of the "blockade." And at any moment 
during those days, at least 3,000 ships could 
have been found traversing the "danger zone," 
which the Germans imagined themselves to have 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 11 

barred. One is reminded of the Hamburger 
Nachriehten last year, after the Zeppehn raid 
in January, 1916. "EngHsh industry hes in 
ruins," said that astonishing print. "The sea 
has been swept clean," says one of its brethren 
now. Yet all the while there, in the danger 
zone, whenever by day or night one turns 
one's thoughts to it, are the 3,000 ships; and 
there in the course of a fortnight are the 12,000 
ships going and coming. 

Yet all the same, as I have said before, 
there is danger and there is anxiety. The 
neutrals — save America — have been intimi- 
dated; they are keeping their ships in har- 
bour; and to do without their tonnage is a 
serious matter for us. Meanwhile the best 
brains in naval England are at work, and one 
can feel the sailors straining at the leash. In 
the first eighteen days of February there were 
forty fights with submarines. The Navy talks 
very little about them, and says nothing of 
which it is not certain. But all the scientific 
resources, all the fighting brains of naval 
England are being brought to bear, and we 
at home — let us keep to our rations, the only 
thing we can do to help our men at sea. 

. . . How this grey estuary spread before 
my eyes illustrates and illuminates the figures 



12 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

I have been quoting ! I am on the light 
cruiser of a famous Commodore, and I have 
just been creeping and cKmbing through a 
submarine. The waters round are crowded 
with those hght craft, destroyers, submarines, 
mine-sweepers, trawlers, patrol-boats, on which 
for the moment, at any rate, the fortunes of 
the naval war tlirns. And take notice that 
they are all — or almost all — new ; the very 
latest products of British shipyards. We have 
plenty of battleships — but "we must now 
build, as quickly as possible, the smaller craft, 
and the merchant ships we want," says Sir 
Edward Carson. ''Not a slip in the country 
will be empty during the coming months. 
Every rivet put into a ship will contribute to 
the defeat of Germany. And 47 per cent of 
the Merchant Service have already been armed. 
The riveters must indeed have been hard at 
work ! This crowded scene carries me back 
to the Clyde where I was last year, to the new 
factories and workshops, with their ever- 
increasing throng of women, and to the mar- 
vellous work of the shipyards. No talk now 
of strikes, of a disaffected and revolutionary 
minority on the Clyde, as there was twelve 
months ago. The will of the nation has be- 
come as steel — to win the war. Throughout 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 13 

England, as in these naval oflSeers beside me, 
there is the same tense yet discipHned expec- 
tancy. As we lunch and talk on this cruiser 
at rest, messages come in perpetually; the 
cruiser itself is ready for the open sea, at an 
hour and a half's notice; the Sea-planes pass 
out and come in over the mdiith of the har- 
bour on their voyages of discovery and report, 
and these destroyers and mine-sweepers that 
lie so quietly near us, will be out again to- 
night in the North Sea, grappling with every 
difficulty and facing every danger, in the true 
i^pirit of a wonderful service, while we land- 
folk sleep and eat in peace— grumbling, no 
doubt, with our morning newspaper and coffee, 
when any of the German destroyers who come 
out from Zeebrugge are allowed to get home 
with a whole skin. "What on earth is the 
Navy about .^" Well, the Navy knows. Ger- 
many is doing her very worst, and will go on 
doing it — ^for a time. The line of defensive 
watch in the North Sea is long; the North 
Sea is a big place; the Germans often have 
the luck of the street-boy who rings a bell and 
runs away before the policeman comes up. 
But the Navy has no doubts. The situation, 
says one of my cheerful hosts, is quite 
''healthy" and we shall see *' great things iii 



14 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

the coming months." We had better leave 
it at that ! 

Now let us look at these destroyers in an- 
other scene. It is the last day of February, 
and I find myself on a military steamer, 
bound for a French Port and on my way to 
the British Headquarters in France. With 
me is the same dear daughter who accom- 
panied me last year as ''dame secretaire" on 
my first errand. The boat is crowded with 
soldiers, and before we reach the French shore 
we have listened to almost every song — old and 
new — in Tommy's repertory. There is even 
"Tipperary," a snatch, a ghost of ''Tipperary," 
intermingled with many others, rising and fall- 
ing, no one knows why, started now here, now 
there, and dying away again after a line or 
two. It is a draught going out to France for the 
first time, north countrymen, by their accent; 
and life-belts and submarines seem to amuse 
them hugely, to judge by the running fire of 
chaff that goes on. But, after a while, I cease 
to listen. I am thinking first of what awaits 
us on the farther shore, on which the lights 
are coming out, and of those interesting passes 
inviting us to G. H. Q. as "Government 
Guests," which lie safe in our hand-bags. 
And then my thoughts slip back to a conver- 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 15 

sation of the day before, with Dr. Addison, 
the new Minister of Munitions. 

A man in the prime of Hfe, with whitening 
hair — prematurely white, for the face and 
figure are quite young still — and stamped, so 
far as expression and aspect are concerned, 
by those social and humane interests which 
first carried him into Parliament. I have been 
long concerned with Evening Play Centres for 
school-children in Hoxton, one of the most 
congested quarters of our East End. And 
seven years ago I began to hear of the young 
and public-spirited doctor and man of science, 
who had made himself a name and place in 
Hoxton, who had won the confidence of the 
people crowded in its unlovely streets, had 
worked for the poor and the sick, and the 
children of Hoxton, and had now beaten the 
Tory member, and was Hoxton's Liberal rep- 
resentative in the new Parliament elected in 
January, 1910, to deal with the Lords, after 
the throwing out of Lloyd George's famous 
Budget. Once or twice since, I had come 
across him in matters concerned with educa- 
tion — cripple schools and the like — when he 
was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of 
Education, immediately before -the war. And 
now here was the doctor, the Hunterian Pro- 



16 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

fessor, the social worker, the friend of schools 
and school-children, transformed into the 
fighting Minister of a great fighting Depart- 
ment, itself the creation of the war, only second 
— second^in its importance for the war, to 
the Admiralty and the War Office. And what 
a story the new Minister has to tell ! I was 
myself for a fortnight of last year, the guest 
of the Ministry of Munitions, while Mr. Lloyd 
George was still its head, in some of the most 
important Munition areas; and I was then 
able to feel the current of hot energy, started 
by the first Minister running — not, of course, 
without local obstacles and animosities — 
through an electrified England. That was in 
February, 1916. Then, in August, came the 
astonishing speech of Mr. Montagu, on the 
development of the Munitions supply in one 
short year, as illustrated by the happenings 
of the Somme battlefield. And now, as suc- 
cessor to Mr. Montagu and Mr. Lloyd George, 
Dr. Addison sat in the Minister's chair, con- 
tinuing the story. How true it is that cir- 
cumstances at once discover and make the 
men ! Given my own art, it is perhaps natural 
that the growth of personality is one of the 
most interesting things in the world to me. 
And as the Minister ran through the expan- 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 17 

sions of his own Department, the aspect of the 
matter was especially plain to me. Starting 
from the manufacture of guns, ammunition, 
and explosives, and after pushing that to in- 
credible figures, the necessities of its great task 
has led the Ministry to one forward step after 
another. Seeing that the supply of Munitions 
depends on the supply of raw material, it is 
now regulating the whole mineral supply of 
this country, and much of that of the Allies; 
it is about to work qualities of iron ore that 
have never been worked before; it is deciding 
over the length and breadth of the country, 
how much aluminum should be allowed to 
one firm, how much copper to another; it is 
producing steel for our Allies as well as for 
ourselves; it has taken over with time the 
supply of Motor Transport Vehicles for the 
War Office, and is now adding to it the pro- 
vision of Railway Material here and abroad, 
and is dictating meanwhile to every engineer- 
ing firm in the country which of its orders 
should come first, and which last. It is man- 
aging a whole gigantic industry with em- 
ployees running into millions, half a million 
of them women, and managing it under 
wholly new conditions of humanity and fore- 
thought; it is housing and feeding and caring 



18 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

for innumerable thousands; transforming from 
day to day, as by a kind of bywork, the in- 
dustrial mind and training of multitudes, and 
laying the foundations of a new, and surely 
happier England, after the war; and — finally — 
it is adjusting, with, on the whole, great suc- 
cess, the rival claims of the factories and the 
trenches, sending more and more men from 
the workshops to the fighting-line, in propor- 
tion as the unskilled labour of the countrv of 
men and women, but especially of women — 
is drawn, more and more widely, into the ser- 
vice of a dwindling amount of skilled labour, 
more and more ''diluted." While the Minis- 
ter's vivid talk ranged over this immense 
field, one realised the truth of the saying — "It 
is by pumping that one draws water into one's 
well" — in other words, it is action, and again 
action, that develops the strong man, and 
tests the weak one. 

I recall particularly a little story of — lubri- 
cating oil ! Lubricating oil, essential to the 
immense Motor Transport in the war, depends 
apparently upon two things — the shale from 
which the oil is extracted — the retorts in which 
it is manufactured. Two sets of employers, 
two sets of workers were concerned — each 
with their claim on railway-trucks; and no co- 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 19 

ordination between the two. The shale lay 
waiting for the retorts; the retorts sat idle for 
lack of shale. But the Ministry stepped in; 
there was a conference in the Minister's room; 
a little good-will and organisation, and the 
trucks were pooled, the shale was brought to 
the retorts, the retorts were made available 
for the shale. Result— important increase in 
a product necessary to the war, and an im- 
portant decrease in the expenses of produc- 
tion. So much for the Ministry on its home 
ground. Abroad, close to the front, which 
the Ministry of Munitions, under Mr. Lloyd 
George and Mr. Montagu, covered last year 
with that vast supply of guns of all cahbre, 
and ammunitions of all kinds, which contrib- 
uted so vitally to win us the Battle of the 
Somme, and in its still further development is 
now assuring the safety and success of our 
armies as we pursue the German retreat — I 
came upon many traces of the present Minister 
in France, and all suggestive of the same 
quick and sympathetic intelligence. 

... But the light is faihng, and the shore 
is nearing. Life-belts are taken off, the de- 
stroyers have disappeared. We are on the 
quay, kindly welcomed by an officer from 
G. H. Q., who passes our bags rapidly through 



20 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

the Custom House, and carrieW its off to a 
neighbouring hotel for the night, it being too 
late for the long drive to G. H. Q. We are in 
France again — and the great presence of the 
army is all about us. The quay crowded with 
soldiers, the port alive with ships, the grey- 
blue uniforms mingling with the khaki — after 
a year I see it again, and one's pulses quicken. 
The vast effort of England which last year 
had already reached so great a height, and has 
now, as all accounts testify, been so incredibly 
developed, is here once more, in visible action, 
before me. 

The motor arrives early, and with our cour- 
teous officer who has charge of us in front, 
we are off, first, for one of the great camps 
I saw last year, and then for G. H. Q. itself. 
On the way, as we speed over the rolling-down 
country beyond the town, my eyes are keen 
to catch some of the new signs of the time. 
Here is the first — a railway line in process of 
doubling — and large numbers of men, some 
of them German prisoners, working at it; 
typical, both of the immense railway develop- 
ment all over the military zone, since last year, 
and of the extensive use now being made of 
prisoners' labour, in regions well behind the 
firing-line. They lift their heads as we pass. 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 21 

looking with curiosity at the two ladies in the 
mxHtary car. Their flat round caps give them 
an odd similarity. It is as if one saw scores 
of the same face, differentiated here and there 
by a beard. A docile, hard-working crew, by 
all accounts, who give no trouble, and are 
managed largely by their N. C. O's. Are 
there some among them who saw the massacre 
at Dinant, the terrible things in Lorraine.^ 
Their placid, expressionless faces tell no tale. 

But the miles have flown, and here already 
are the long lines of the camp. How pleasant 
to be greeted by some of the same officers! 
We go into the Headquarters Office, for a 
talk. " Grown .^ I should think we have," 

says Colonel . And, rapidly, he and one 

of his colleagues run through some of the ad- 
ditions and expansions. The Training-Camp 
has been practically doubled, or, rather, an- 
other training-camp has been added to the 
one that existed last year, and both are 
equipped with an increased number of special 
schools— an ArtiUery Training School, an En- 
gineer Training School, a Lewis Gun School, 
an actual gas-chamber for the training of men 
in the use of their gas-helmets — and others, of 
which it is not possible to speak. "We have 
put through half a milhon of reinforcements 



22 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

since you were here last." And close upon 
two million rations were issued last month ! 
The veterinary accommodation ha:s been much 
enlarged, and two Convalescent Horse Depots 
have been added — (it is good indeed to see 
with what kindness and thought the Army 
treats its horses) ! But the most novel addi- 
tion to the camp has been a Fat Factory for 
the production of fat — from which comes the 
glycerin used in explosives — from all the food 
refuse of the camp. The fat produced by the 
system, here and in England, has already pro- 
vided glycerin for millions of eighteen-pounder 
shells; the problem of camp refuse, always a 
desperate one, has been solved; and as a com- 
mercial venture, the factory makes 250 per 
cent profit. 

Undeterred by what we hear of the smells ! 
we go off to see it, and the enthusiastic man- 
ager explains the unsavoury processes by which 
the bones and refuse of all the vast camp are 
boiled down into a white fat, that looks almost 
eatable, but is meant, as a matter of fact, to 
feed not men, but shells. Nor is that the 
only contribution to the fighting-line which 
the factory makes. All the cotton waste of 
the hospitals — the old dressings and bandage 
— come here, and after sterilisation and dis- 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 23 

infection, go to England for guncotton. Was 
there ever a grimmer cycle than this, by which 
that which feeds and that which heals become 
in the end that which kills ? But let me try 
to forget that side of it, and remember, rather, 
as we leave the smells behind, that the cal- 
cined bones become artificial manure, and go 
back again into the tortured fields of France, 
while other by-products of the factory help 
the peasants near to feed their pigs. And 
anything, however small, that helps the peas- 
ants of France in this war comforts one's 
heart. 

We climb up to the high ground of the camp 
for a general view before we go on to G. H. Q., 
and I see it, as I saw it last year, spread under 
the March sunshine, among the sand and the 
pines — a wonderful sight. "Everything has 
grown, you see, except the staff!" says the 
Colonel smiling as we shake hands. "But we 
rub along !" 

Then We are in the motor again, and at 
last the new G. H. Q. — how different from that 
I saw last year ! — rises before us. We make 
our way into the town, and presently the car 
stops for a minute before a building, and 
while our ofiicer goes within we retreat into 
a side street to wait. But my thoughts are 



U TOWARDS THE GOAL 

busy. For that building, of which the long 
side-front is still visible, is the brain of the 
British Army in France, and on the men who 
work there depend the fortunes of that dis- 
tant line, where our brothers and sons are 
meeting face to face the horrors and foulnesses 
of war. How many women whose hearts hang 
on the war, whose all is there in daily and 
nightly jeopardy, read the words "British 
Headquarters" with an involuntary lift of 
soul, an invocation without words. Yet 
scarcely half a dozen women in this war — will 
ever see the actual spot. And here it is, un- 
der my eyes, the cold March sun shining fit- 
fully on it, the sentry at the door, the khaki 
figures passing in and out. I picture to my- 
self the room within, the news arriving of 
General Gough's advance on the Ancre,— of 
the rapidity of that German retreat as to 
which all Europe is speculating. 

But we move on — to a quiet country house 
in a town garden — the Headquarters Mess of 
the Intelligence Department. Here I find 
among our kind hosts, men already known to 
me from my visit of the year before, men 
whose primary business it is to watch the 
enemy, who know where every German regi- 
ment and German Commander are, who. 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 25 

through the aerial photography of our airmen 
are now acquainted with every step of the 
German retreat, and have already the photo- 
graphs of his second line. All the informa- 
tion gathered from prisoners, and from in- 
numerable other sources comes here; and the 
Department has its eye besides on everything 
that happens within the zone of our armies in 
Prance. For a woman to be received here is 
an exception— perhaps I may say an honour 
—of which I am rather tremulously aware. 
Can I make it worth while ? But a little con- 
versation with these earnest and able men 
make it clear that they have considered the 
matter like any other incident in the day's 
work. England's Effort has been useful, there- 
fore, I am to be allowed again to see and write 
for myself; and therefore, what information 
can be given me as to the growth of our mili- 
tary power in France since last year will be 
given. It is not, of course, a question of war 
correspondence, which is not within a woman's 
powers. But it is a question of as much "see- 
ing" as can be arranged for, combined with as 
much first-hand information as time and the 
censor allow. I begin to see my way. 

The conversation at luncheon — the simplest 
of meals — and during a stroll afterwards is 



26 TOWARDS THE GOAL 

thrilling indeed to us newcomers. ''The com- 
ing summer's campaign must decide the issue 
of the war — though it may not see the end of 
it." '*The issue of the war" — and the fate 
of Europe ! There is no doubt here as to the 
final issue; but there is a resolute refusal to 
fix dates, or prophesy details. "Man for man, 
we are now the better army. Our strength is 
increasing month by month, while that of 
Germany is failing. Men and officers, who, a 
year ago were still insufficiently trained, are 
now seasoned troops, with nothing to learn 
from the Germans; and the troops recruited 
under the Military Service Act, now beginning 
to come out, are of surprisingly good quality." 
On such lines the talk ran and it is over all 
too soon. 

Then we are in the motor again, bound for 
an aerodrome, forty or fifty miles away. We 
are late, and the last 27 kilometres fly by in 
32 minutes. It is a rolling country, and there 
are steep descents and sharp climbs, through 
the thickly scattered and characteristic vil- 
lages and small old towns of the Nord, villages 
crowded all of them with our men. 

Presently, with a start, we find ourselves 
on a road which saw us last Spring — a year 
ago, to the day. The same blue distances, 



TOWARDS THE GOAL 27 

the same glimpses of old towns in the hollows, 
the same touches of snow on the heights. At 
last, in the cold sunset light, we draw up at 
our destination. The wide aerodrome stretches 
before us — great hangars coloured so as to 
escape the notice of a Boche overhead — 
machines of all sizes rising and landing — 
coming out of the hangars, or returning to 
them for the night. Two of the officers in 
charge meet us, and we walk round with 
them, loking at the various types — some for 
fighting, some for observation; and under- 
standing what I can ! But the spirit of the 
men — that one can understand. "We are 
accumulating, concentrating now, for the sum- 
mer offensive. Of course the Germans have 
been working hard, too. They have lots of 
new and improved machines. But when the 
test comes we are confident that we shall 
down them again, as we did on the Somme. 
For us, the all important thing is the fighting 
behind the enemy lines. Our object is to 
prevent the German machines from rising at 
all, to keep them down, while our airmen are 
reconnoitring along the fighting-line. Awfully 
dangerous work ! Lots don't come back. But 
what then.f^ They will have done their job !" 
The words were spoken so carelessly that 



m TOWARDS THE GOAL 

for a few seconds I did not realise their mean- 
ing. But there was that in the expression of 
the man who spoke them which showed there 
#as no lack of realisation there. How often 
I have recalled them, with a sore heart in thes^ 
recent weeks of heavy losses in the air-service ! 
— losses due, I have no doubt, to the special 
claims upon it of the German retreat. 

The conversation dropped a little till one 
of my companions, with a smile, pointed over- 
head. Three splendid biplanes were sailing 
above us, at a great height, bound southwards. 
"Back from the line!" said the officer beside 
me, and we watched them till they dipped 
and disappeared in the sunset clouds. Then 
tea and pleasant talk. The young men insist 
that D. shall make tea. This visit of two 
ladies is a unique event. For the moment, 
as she makes tea, in their sitting-room whicli 
is now full of men, there is an illusion of home. 

Then we are off, for another fifty miles. 
Darkness comes on, the roads are unfamiliar. 
At last an avenue, and bright lights. We have 
reached the Visitors' Chateau, under the wing 

of G. H. Q. 

Mary A. Ward. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 910 883 1 



